


Of a Night

by Adadzio



Series: Smut [7]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Euphemisms, F/M, Jealousy, Retrospective, Scandal, Stannis being a hypocrite, Tent Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-27
Updated: 2016-10-27
Packaged: 2018-08-23 21:58:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,090
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8344345
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Adadzio/pseuds/Adadzio
Summary: His men are afraid to say Melisandre's name, but not always for fear of Melisandre.





	

**Author's Note:**

> **Prompts** : various possessive Stannis ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) 
> 
> I realised there are three stretches of time Davos ends up narrating Stannis/Mel without actually being there to witness: the first being the majority of Stannis's siege of Storm's End (mid-ACOK); the second, post-Blackwater; and the third, the Northern voyage/Wall plot. This a take on that first period of time, the blind spot between Catelyn IV and Davos II, from Stannis POV. It explores the somewhat [darker interpretations](https://cantuse.wordpress.com/2014/09/30/the-king-with-two-faces/) of his character. 
> 
>  
> 
> _You are wrong in one respect, Davos. There is a need. Men do not love me as they loved my brothers. They follow me because they fear me._

“I fear I've displeased you.”

The king glanced over at her, noting how her red eyes caught the last rays of sun through canvas walls. He didn't care to think on her words, but they tortured him all the same.  _Why does she fear?_   _How could I possibly be displeased with her bottom grinding in my lap and her ivory back arched before me, a tangled rein of copper hair in my fist?_

Maybe she simply sensed that this dance had always been repulsive to him, this dance of sweat and seed. He hadn't danced with many women, mind her, had known no other dalliances. He learned to avoid whores by Robert’s example, and his wife was unappealing as yesterday’s supper, no matter how he tried to get his body in cooperation. He did not fault Selyse, and he could only hope she did not fault him. They did not have the patience to reassure each other.

_But the priestess…_

She was pretty, certainly. Even beautiful, and she was young and exotic and pleasant enough. These were mere moments of weakness in the fields of Storm's End. Leave it to him to drag his priestess on campaign and end up fucking her in the dimness of a tent. Was he truly surprised at his own wretchedness? He told himself there was no desire, no true intimacy, nothing but dirty necessity and service. He yielded to her ritual, that was it, and she bent an inch in return, doing what was required. The duty was greater than the shame, and he was rewarded with an abrupt end to his brother's folly, sparing many thousands of men from battle between two Baratheons. 

All the same, nothing could assuage the intangible mounting ache. _Two is not three,_ he thought, rising from the edge of the bed. _I have her loyalty, her body, but…_

“Have I displeased you?” she pressed. Her figure was still curled on his pallet by the fire, where he had taken to keeping her of a night (for only she could soothe his violent nightmares).

He frowned, unsure how to answer, and that seemed answer enough. _She misjudges my restlessness._  He watched her slip back into a robe of red silk.

 _How naturally she dresses and undresses herself_. It was clear she'd been doing so all her life, not as a whore might bare herself for sale, but as one who'd never had the luxury of servant or even friend to lend a hand. It seemed such habits were hard to break. Even risen as she had to adopt a title—however empty—she kept no handmaidens, no serving girls, not even a steward to assist her. If ever she required a drink or her brazier rekindled, she preferred to call upon his own Devan. A presumptuous creature, she was. And yet he did not rebuke her as oft he should. 

“Sire, shall I return to my tent?” 

The king shook his head to clear its tumult. “Your distraction is clear. Go, return to your flames.” 

Melisandre lowered her gaze in understanding, if not genuine remorse. “Forgive me, Your Grace. This magic— ”

“I don’t care,” he said roughly.  _Why do I care?_   “You were not called here for bloodmagic.”

She nodded at her bare feet. “Of course. I know you would have comfort now, with the loss of younger brother…Perhaps we might pray?" He meant to refuse, but was too transfixed by that strange accent of hers. Melisandre touched his forearm very lightly, and blood thrummed like fire through his veins. "The pain will pass, Sire. It is a consuming thing to belong to R’hllor. He is a jealous god, and when he speaks we cannot neglect his voice."

“You seem to hear his voice often in my bed.”

A little line wrinkled her forehead, her knuckles turning white as they clasped the robe across her chest. “If it’s a brothel performance you want, I suggest you visit a brothel.”

“You misunderstand me,” he snapped. “I am not like other men. I do not keep empty company with whores. _"_ Anger flashed in that red gaze. Stannis groaned after a moment, hanging his head. “I meant…” 

“I’ve understood you perfectly, Sire.” With that she hid her bitter expression and brushed from his tent.

* * *

Sometime between the moon and the sun she returned, a scarlet haze bathed in lavender dawn, just beyond his bed's gauzy partition. "Melisandre," he sighed, shifting up from his pallet. His pavilion was nothing grand; large enough to hold council, but still a soldier's tent of heavy canvas, dyed the dark yellow that sometimes passed for gold. Only the fiery heart marked it as royal, and even that was a small patch of red amidst the gloom. Nothing grand, but she transformed it into shimmering silk of a night.

“My king." It was a queer, distorted sound—either a whispered invitation, or a whisper of caution. Pale and soft and bare was the outline of her body, hidden from him by that curtain of tantalising muslin. The hair kissing her bottom was burnished red, the most brilliant copper. Too brilliant.  _I am dreaming,_ he realised.  _And if it's a dream…what harm is there?_

"Do not hide such a sight from me," he commanded. "Come, I would have you share my pavilion and never leave it."

“What good would that do? A man of honour has no need for idle pleasure. No need for it, my king."  _My king,_ she called him.He shuddered to hear such on her lips. The candlelight caught her skin as she breathed in and out, pink nipples brushing the curtain in mocking temptation. "You should turn to the fire in prayer.” 

She was right. That did not stop him from crawling across his pallet toward the divine vision. His hand palmed the curtain there, cupping the ripe blossom between her thighs. Melisandre sighed something in Asshai'i. By some trick he understood the guttural sounds as a prayer, even if he could not discern their meaning. Her belly was warm against his lips, her nectar sweet as he imagined honeyed wine to be.

"Move your hair," he murmured. Her body shifted as she gathered a handful of the fiery strands, allowing him to kiss the length of her spine, the swell and dip of her backside. So warm and sweet she was, even through a muslin screen. "Let me see you…" 

Melisandre merely smiled.

 _The temptress! How does she evade me even in dreams?_ A thought came to him. _Am I truly dreaming?_

Again she smiled, speaking the same foreign tongue. "No, my king." 

The sun was blazing when next he awoke, soaked to the skin and covered in his own pearly release. The priestess was nowhere to be found, even as he tore down the fabric around his bed. "Strike the Lady Melisandre's tent," he shouted at his guards.

"Strike it, Sire?"

"Take it down! Now, damn you!"

Devan peered wide-eyed around the corner as the king tore his curtain to ragged threads.

* * *

His fingers drummed restlessly against the table as his pavilion swelled with bodies that afternoon. The humid air felt suffocating, uneasy. It was the first council he'd held since staggering out of his tent to hear the news of Renly's fate. How ill and delirious he had been that dawn. He could vaguely recall the way Melisandre held his head in her lap, little Devan pushing cups of cold water at him.

Stannis clenched his jaw to block out the memory. This was no war council; he would suffer  _that_ only with Davos by his side. It was a drudgery to discuss garrison supplies and dole out chastisements, but it was also a critical opportunity to strike fear in the hearts of his brother's turncloaks. _Let the mule-headed lords hear their own braying, at first._ They would learn soon enough what displeased their king.

_"I fear I've displeased you."_

He ground his teeth and rammed a foot against his wooden camp stool. “Lady Melisandre,” he called impatiently. “I'll not suffer this longer than needed. Where is that red plague?”

Her heart-shaped face peeked from a red cowl near the entrance, figure brushing into the pavilion. A thick layer of mud had caked the bottom of her silks, and the newer lords were eyeing her with distaste. _Leave it to Renly’s Rainbow Guard to take offense over appearance._ Stannis fought a smile. “Kind of my priestess to grace us.” A few chuckles sounded from odd places around the tent, but all he could focus on was her. Her image was a dangerous tonic for sore eyes, her hips a warm memory in his hands, her thighs—

“His Grace will forgive, I hope.” The king's men winced at her lilting accent. Still, his bannermen made way so she might settle close to the fire. Melisandre kept chin lifted in polite greeting, but her gaze was pointed. _She is cross to find her little chest of belongings moved to the royal pavilion._ Satisfaction brewed in the blue depths of his eyes. _Good_.

Voices died down as Devan settled at his shoulder. _Would that his father were yet arrived with Black Betha at Storm's End!_ He would rather Davos sat by his side now, scraping dirt from his remaining fingers with the tip of a dagger. 

The king grimaced at the thought even as it warmed him. _Focus._ “Well met, my lords," he said roughly, and it did not seem a welcome greeting at all. "Our gaze turns to Ser Courtnay Penrose another time. First let us address certain refractions just come to my attention.” He rapped a knuckle against the heavy wood of his table. “I will have no coin luring base comforts to this camp. Are we clear?” 

“Men are men, Sire.” 

The table rattled beneath the weight of his fist. “And a whore is a whore! I will have no whores here!”  _There is no need for idle pleasure,_ a dulcet voice echoed in his head.  _No need for it, my king._

“How long shall we be at siege, pray, without warmth in our tents?” 

“It is summer yet, Lord Caron,” Stannis gave him a scathing look. “Do you think this Highgarden, that I ought bathe you in rosewater and powder your backside?"

Bryce the Orange stood abashed. "Far from, Your Grace." 

"And I see your hand in working order, my lord, so make your own warmth. You might find comfort in the Lady Melisandre’s nightfires.”

“That comfort is reserved for you,“ a voice muttered. Bannermen parted in horrified shock, attempting to find the source of the charge. Even Melisandre— _infuriating Melisandre_ —stiffened uneasily near the fire. 

“Who addresses me?” the king demanded, leaning dangerously across the table. In the clearing a sun-freckled squire averted his gaze, a man of just seven and ten. It was clear he was trying to cover his grievous outburst.

"All are welcome to R'hllor's fires," Melisandre said graciously, her gaze boring directly into him. 

The squire titled his head in red-eared acknowledgement. "Of course, my lady."

Stannis was not so quick to forgive. "What was your meaning?" 

“Forgive him, Your Grace." Guyard the Green had a murderous look. "He repeats that which he hears on vulgar tongues, and shall be punished accordingly."

"No…" The squire took a steady breath, regaining courage. “I would but argue on your behalf, Ser, and any with a man's needs. We simply wonder what makes this red one different, that she may be kept in tents of a night?”

Guyard backhanded the boy hard enough to draw blood. "You shame my good name, Erren! The lady accompanies His Grace!"

A harsh sound echoed in the silence of the pavilion. “ _Oho!”_   Stannis laughed, and it was not a reassuring sound. “But see this as a good thing, Ser Guyard, that your squire has boldness to outshine you."

"Apologies, Your Grace, I did not realise—"

"Who is your father, lad?”

“Denys Rhysling, Your Grace. I meant no offense…"

 _What, a Reach man? No doubt a minor lord of long-expired ambition._ He could hear Davos clucking his tongue at the floor, as if to say, _turncloaks and sympathisers, the lot._ “My Onion Knight would lift a brow, and little wonder. This is a company long overlorded by Highgarden—yes, the most of you! I cannot tell the Stormborn here from the Tyrells who starved me in this very place as a boy." Stannis thrust a finger at the rainbow-cloaked knights in the corner. "A month ago you sat in Renly's pavilion, formed his battle plans at Bitterbridge, plotted how I might be brought low. So I ask how this boy might shame your name any more than you already have!"

Lord Bryce of the Marches stepped forward awkwardly. “Your Grace, you are Robert's true heir. Under your late brother we were freer of tongue…and loyalty. But we are here now, with our rightful lord, and shall practice nobler conduct. We are prepared to fight for your justice, serve the one true— ” 

“Indeed you shall. Your boy speaks a fool’s words, ones I might take a tongue for. Yet I can credit them as honest speech, at the least…unlike your flatteries here and whispers elsewhere.”

All the tent began to shift from foot to foot.

Ser Guyard frowned, his colourful cloak twisting in the gentle breeze. “Whispering is not my game, Your Grace. I will be direct in my concerns over a woman in council, and my displeasure that she’s allowed to carry your standard. Such is— ”

"Noted and discarded." Stannis turned to the bold squire. “Does your master carry any other _concerns_?”

“Only that she should take more care, Your Grace…the lady. He knows boys in a camp don't always show the respect deserving. There is one who serves under the cook, and I saw him pull at her arm last night."

"What sort of fool would dare so?" 

"'Twas very dark, my lord…he was mistaking her a whore.”

Bryce Caron recoiled, though it seemed contrived. “For shame, to so dishonour the priestess!” 

“Is this true, Melisandre?” The king’s jaw was clenched near shattering. 

She tilted her head, breaking her silence. “I was…returning to my tent." He felt a stab of guilt between the ribs. "The cook’s boy meant nothing by it.”

"Nothing by it?"

“No boy or man assaults my person, Sire. R'hllor watches over his servants. If we might turn to— ” 

“Still your feet, my lady! My new lords shall see how I deal out justice here. Boy, bring this hand which has defiled her.” 

A tense moment passed.

Ser Guyard grabbed his squire by the scruff of the neck. "Well then, Erren! Do as the king says!" The squire hesitated a mere second before brushing through the tent flap and marching solemnly through the mud outside.

"Leave it to the lowborns," a knight muttered in the corner. "You honour a servant by bringing them and they repay you…" 

It seemed an agonising hour before Erren returned, dragging an unclean lad in tow. "Here's the serving boy, Your Grace."

The servant looked around in confusion, taking a clumsy knee. "Your Grace? Why— "

"You are not so little a boy to make excuses," the king said curtly, stalking around the table to tower over him.

"I…Excuses, Your Grace? "

Stannis jerked his head toward the priestess. "Do you recognise what you tried to _purchase_ evening last?" 

"Her," the servant realised. "No, I…I but set a f-finger on her, Your Grace."

"My lady is not yours to grope," Stannis thundered. "Stand up!" 

"I let her walk away, I swear it, I wouldn't force m'self on any girl— "

"Be glad you never opened your breeches. A finger, was it?" In one swift motion Stannis grabbed the boy's hand and rammed the fingers backwards. A sickly _crack_  filled the air as the bones bent and gave way, and then a _thunk_ as the king slammed the mangled hand upon the table. Several men winced at the sound. "Would have been a shame to take the whole hand, then." His dagger caught a dull light as it rose and sliced down on an oddly-angled finger. 

Crippling screams filled the tent. Erren Rhysling looked ready to piss himself, though relieved to dodge the king's justice. 

"Now is proven the importance of keeping this camp clean," Stannis said evenly. Like sin, possessiveness was a wretched thing, but it was sweeter than honey as it scorched him alive, steady and warm as the rising sun. "And such the reason I keep the lady by my side. Even closer I shall, thenceforth. If any would whisper about it, do so now and loudly, or never whisper at all."

* * *

Irritation marred her red gaze as the king sprinkled salt in a clay cup. 

"I see I have no tent to return to. Am I kept here for _comfort?"_ He did not respond, simply took a sip of his water as she loomed over the plain stool. After a moment Melisandre turned her heel to follow the rest out of the pavilion. "You need not defend me in such spectacle," she said plainly. "I am capable on my own. Good day."

Before she could take a step, he caught her wrist and tugged her into his lap. “That spectacle was not about defending you. It was a message, a warning." To his amusement, Melisandre exhaled and squirmed in his grasp. “And still my red hawkling is keen to circle out of reach!"

“I…do not understand,” she admitted.

"What might you call yourself in court, not counting priestess?"

A furrow touched her brow, but she answered, "Your faithful servant."

His eyes darkened to match the Narrow Sea. “That and more. You are my weapon. Do you see?" Her heated body set his to boiling. "You are as Lightbringer, no less important to me, to be kept at hand at all times." 

"Weapon…"

"Mine own. And now we will turn such power to Cortnay Penrose."

Melisandre pushed calmly at his insistent hands, but he could feel _something_  brewing inside her, as if this were some test on the verge of passing. “Do not make me to be a goddess, Sire.” 

His lips brushed the pale length of her throat, prompting her to shudder. "No?" he asked hoarsely. "Have I misjudged you?" Perhaps he had, his judgment clouded by the maddening ache with every stolen kiss and each heated sigh. "I fear I am not the man you think me, Melisandre." 

“Do not fear. It is R’hllor you seek, in all your doubt and suffering.”

“I look into the fire and see no red god, only a red priestess…a red priestess with a pink blossom between her thighs, tight and slick as…”

“Your Grace.” For once, Melisandre was scarlet-cheeked. 

“You blush! Was it all a dream, then? See how  _righteous_  your champion is."

"Flesh is flesh, it is how you act on the Lord's call that matters," she insisted. 

A growl escaped his throat. "Ah. So you burn too, beneath such mastered control? Is that the purpose of your paleness, a way to hide the passion inside you, the way milk clouds and cools a mulled drink?” Her fingers were so very warm against the stiffness of his lap. “You have bewitched me,” he murmured. “Do not act innocent, I know you have…played me the fool all this time with your little touches, torturing me until I burn and beg at your feet, making me think myself at fault…” 

“I am but here to counsel your spirit, Sire…to fulfill that which is promised you.”

One hand tugged unceremoniously at the laces of her gown, renting the silk from her shoulders. "Then let us pray, my lady."

How red Melisandre was, but the hidden parts of her body were white and pink; nipples like pale rubies, the rosy blossom he so dreamed of.His kiss was hard, bruising, and it was not enough. He lifted and carried her to his pallet in one firm motion, pressing her hips to his. "Your Grace," she sighed. 

"Call me your king." _As you did behind the curtain._

"My king…" That infernal stone in her choker pulsed as he pushed her to lie down, and for once the brazier's flames were forgotten.“My king," she breathed again. "How do you judge your priestess now?”

The same hands that had just spilt blood now settled upon her upper thighs. They plucked her legs up and apart like delicate ivory petals, draping them over his shoulders. “As I suspected…entirely divine, with a flower to rival Highgarden.”

They were still rutting like animals when the shadow of dawn fell across his tent. Melisandre inhaled and pulled her shift down as best she could. “Devan…”

He looked over his shoulder to see that the shadow was his squire in nightclothes, a pitcher in hand and brown eyes wider than ever. “Devan,” he said sharply. 

The boy shook his head, looking quite stupefied. “Forgive me, S-sire—I heard…a cry…I thought— ”

 _Gods damn it, why did I tear down that curtain?_ There was no use trying to hide what had already been seen. “Never mind it. Take another hour of sleep.” 

"T-Thank you, Sire." His gaze was still locked upon the priestess and her parted thighs. It was then Stannis looked closer, looked lower, finding not shock in the boy but eager, youthful desire.

"Devan," he repeated firmly. The boy blinked and nodded. After he'd fled whence he came, Melisandre held her robe to her chest, a question suspended there. 

The king pried the silk from her hands. "I am not finished with you," he said roughly. Then he split the robe in two and fucked her until her cries were louder than before.

"You are exactly the man I hoped you to be," she whispered, a feverish gleam dancing in her eyes. "And well you burn so fully, for R’hllor is a jealous god."

* * *

Stannis wondered, "How could a god be covetous?" But his priestess had drifted off, by then.

Later, many months later—after he'd cast her aside and crawled back on his knees—another strange claim left her lips. "It was Davos," she confided, cleaning his wounds from the Blackwater. "I saw Ser Davos in the fire."

"Alive?"

"Alive, my king…and eager to sacrifice me to his seven gods." It could not be. Not his Davos. Davos had never been too pious… "Do you see it, my king?" Stannis looked into the fire and saw it—a Lyseni dirk, sharp and merciless. A weapon of dark intent. 

He saw, by gods, and he heard a familiar voice twisting among those cruel flames.  _It seems to me that she is very quick to sense any threat to her own person, but surely she cannot see everything._

A knife in the heart. 

_We should start by killing her. I know a place where we could waylay her, four of us with sharp swords._

A knife in Melisandre's heart.

_I will cut the living heart from her breast and see how it burns._

It could not be. Not his Melisandre, not her heart. "You are mistaken about much, my lady. Davos would say two is not proof of three. Is not R'hllor too jealous a god to risk his priestess?"

But the Davos in the fire was also touching the pouch at his neck, as if to say,  _The Mother speaks to me in a jealous way too, does command me to avenge her…_

His priestess sighed and kissed his bruised side, and suddenly his knight was gone from mind, the knife reduced to a mere shadow in the fire. "You saw it, my king. What better proof? Oh, yes, R'hllor will protect me. Of that I've no doubt."

 _Are you truly capable, R'hllor? Are you possessive enough, covetous enough?_ Stannis ground his teeth until his head was pounding.  _Y_ _our champion is jealous and more, a man with flesh that has claimed her, has felt the silk of her skin of a night and tasted the dew between her thighs at dawn._ _You have never held a burning blossom, R'hllor, so how could you protect one?_ _Your champion would dress himself in false prophecies and glamoured sword to keep her secure._

_To secure her by his side._

A coppery head settled in his lap. "R'hllor would never relinquish me, or any of his servants. Remember that, my king. R'hllor is a jealous god."

_I hope he envies me fully._

**Author's Note:**

> // Much of the Davos dialogue in that last section is from ASOS, so credit to GRRM ~


End file.
